


Small Pets

by trash_bat



Category: British Actor RPF, British Comedy RPF, Nathan Barley (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mindfuck, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rare Pairings, Sadism, Sex Toys, Video Cameras, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-24 15:43:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18574549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_bat/pseuds/trash_bat
Summary: ‘You get the small pets and lock them in a hot box, then see which one survives. At the moment they’re rattling around and shrieking quite a lot. In a month’s time or so I’ll kind of know which one I’m doing. One of the pets is a little, invisible shriek radio pet. If I open the box and the others are dead, I’ll know it’s a radio idea I have to do.’- Chris Morris, 2011





	Small Pets

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Poland](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158864) by [wreathed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed). 



> Chris POV for _Poland_ by wreathed, after I couldn't get it out of my head. Unbeta'ed, not Brit-picked, all faults entirely my own. 
> 
> Deeply fictional, deeply niche. You have been warned.

He permits himself one pet at a time. Otherwise it - _he_ \- won’t have room to breathe. However long it takes. One project. Two questions. _Does it interest? Is it finished?_

 _Brass Eye_ had nearly killed him, before the legals, spats with the suits, battles in post. It had started out thrilling, sure, and he doesn’t regret the work — never once in his life has he _regretted the work_ — but it was an airhorn blared in the ear, a bright pulse to render a man temporarily blind. All he’d wanted after was to submerge himself in deep, blue-dark water.

He made a cool, still corner and hadn’t vacated it yet. Enough interest remained, sufficiently unfinished to eke out live action, then, when he’d been set to detach, it asked for more. Visuals mixed, remixed, with overlay, ambient noise, and he’d welcomed it; breath held in his lungs, legs extended out stiff, until his bare toes grazed the slippery bottom.

Only _one thing at a time_ invites the possibility that he’ll suffocate before he’s finished. But what a goddamned way to go.

It eventually releases him, with the caution that he might not have reached the limit yet. More may be buried beneath the murk.

His small pets are active when the world sleeps. Their nails scratch the parquet as they scuffle beneath the bed. Cold little paws scamper across his face. Some snuffle, others snort. One howls against the shell of his ear, the sound like a large dog rendered small by abuse. He pities it, then chides himself for being fucking sentimental. His job is to catch their soft little bodies, stuff them wriggling into a tall metal box, seal it up, and wait.

He pulls the pillow over his head to muffle the noise.

 

* * * * *

 

The millennium has come and gone and the world has not ended, though many people seemed to have hoped it would. He cycles purposefully to record shops, bookstores, gigs, the pub; aimlessly, along the towpaths. It is a cloudy, hot summer, and they holiday in Spain, where it is even hotter, and where Jo tells him, over _pan con tomate_ and decent Rioja, that she thinks it’s time they fixed up the spare room as another nursery.

The box greets him when he finally goes back to Poland Street. He swears he can hear it from the ground floor, its violent, insistent rattle discernible as he climbs the four flights up.

Michael invites them to a do at Gia’s new place, where there’s good wine, shit canapes, and an overrun of fucking media people. Jo is thrilled, however, to take a night off from the baby, who she cannot stop talking about, and the books she still somehow manages to devour, and her seemingly insatiable fondness for paint chips.

He’s been at the red, keeping himself to himself, even going far as to fetch the bottle and keep it, — _corked_ , thank you, he’s not a bloody student — down by his shoes while he flips through the vinyl collection. She’s got stuff he hasn't seen since his market trader days: American imprints, colored wax pressings. He’s deep into the Amoeba backlist when she swoops in behind him, trailing a man with whom he is unacquainted.

 _This is where you’ve got to!_ She’s smiling like she’s pleased to have located him. He smiles back at her. _I’ve brought along someone you need to meet. Charlie — I’m sure you know Chris?_

The other man swallows. Nervous. Well, they always are, aren’t they? His reputation precedes and protects him, but it complicates, too. Would that he could simply live his life without the reactions being overdetermined by what’s come before.

 _— Charlie Brooker_ Gia says, and tows Charlie round so he’s stood at her side. Pliable, but none too happy about it.

Charlie has an old man’s face with a young man’s sneer. It makes him look like a massive dickhead, and isn’t doing him any favours. Close-cropped hair, a wide-lapelled shirt open at the throat. Too-long jeans, gitty trainers with one shoelace needing to be tied. Sloppy. The detail sticks in his craw.

_He does the spoof Radio Times listings on the internet. I sent them to you a while back._

_I remember_ he says. He glances down at Charlie’s shoes.

 _TvGoHome_ Charlie mumbles. He is looking at the floor, too. Anywhere but up. _It’s nothing, really. Bit of a laugh is all._

 _Enjoyed them very much_ he tells Charlie, when the quiet becomes untenable.

 _Oh?_ he says, and lifts his head. His eyes are two pleased slits in a flushed face. _Oh, did you really?_

He gives a bouncy nod. _Quite funny. You’ve got the look of the thing right, haven’t you? Though it must take an awful lot of time._

Charlie deflects the compliments with a mumble. His own throat prickles.

 _I’ll leave you two to it_ Gia says, and floats away to entrap some other poor sod.

They chat for a minute about the listings. Or rather he chats, and Charlie says things in response, but mainly Charlie fidgets. He rubs at his eyes like they’re full of sleep, then puts his hands over them as if he’s trying to stave off a headache. Then he passes a hand over his face, along his other arm, across the top of his shorn head. When he’s been going on like this a while, he suddenly seems to catch himself out, brings his hands down and balls them up by his thighs. It quells the impulses for a moment, but soon enough he’s right back at it, shifting from foot to foot.

 _Do you want to go for a smoke_ he asks, and Charlie’s face floods with relief.

 _Yeah_ he says _yeah that’d be fantastic._

They’re stood on the terrace looking out over the city, he on his second fag, Charlie his third, each lit from the burning end of the one prior. The fidgeting has been reined in, the stammering has continued, and Charlie splutters when he asks about Nathan Barley.

 _He seems quite hapless_ he says. _But then he’s treated with all that vitriol._ Where do you land, Charlie, between making people suffer and laughing at them? How different are they, really?

 _He’s a cunt_ Charlie exhales up at the moon. London twinkles below their feet.

He shows his teeth. _You don’t like him_.

Charlie turns to face him, square head wreathed with smoke. _What’s to like?_

He shrugs. People are stupid, they like all sorts of things. _Is he irredeemable, do you think?_

Charlie seems confused by the question. _Does it matter? A cunt’s a cunt, innit?_

He winces at the juvenilia. _I suppose not, no._

Charlie is pulling out his crumpled pack to light yet another when Jo pokes her head through the terrace door. _We did tell her midnight, darling._

 _Right_ he says, and reaches for Charlie to say goodbye. _Pleasure to meet you._

Charlie transfers his lit cigarette to his left hand, holding the pack alongside it. They shake. His skin is soft, his grip ineffectual.

 _Bye_ he says. _And likewise._

In the taxi Jo lays her head on his shoulder and is out before they reach the river. He has to jostle her awake to pay the driver.

 

* * * * *

 

When he opens the box up it seems — to his bemused disappointment — the pet that’s left was one he’d left for dead. No matter. He’s overdue a chance to bollock the controller anyways.

 

* * * * *

He rings Michael, who rings Gia, who sounds pleased to have played matchmaker. At a quarter till midnight on a Sunday, too late to be anything but deliberate, he dials. Charlie answers on the third ring, his voice a bliss of wavering uncertainty.

_Hello?_

_I hope you don’t mind._ He adopts the tone that’s put him straight through to a thousand directors and senior officers. The one that reminds people his consideration is not a foregone conclusion. That his respect has to be earned. _Gia was kind enough to give me your number._

There’s an unsettled pause at the other end. He has, naturally, deliberately avoided the usual pleasantries.

 _Chris?_ Charlie finally responds. _Gia gave you my number?_

 _I could have emailed_ he says, when really he had never had the slightest intention of doing so. Impossible to establish the dynamics over email. Harder still to gauge how the other person will respond to him. No, he prefers the immediacy the phone offers.

 _Could’ve._ Charlie stifles what sounds like a yawn into the receiver. _‘s fine._

 _Were you sleeping_ he asks, pulse quickening in his wrist.

 _Not really_ Charlie admits. He pictures him now, laid on his side amidst rumpled, dirty sheets, wiping a nervous hand over his cheek, scratching at his shoulder. _I’m not really much one for sleeping._

He spies an opening. A chance to connect.

 _I’m not much one for it either_ he murmurs, like he’s letting Charlie in on some great secret. It's an honest truth, told for effect.

 _Insomnia_ Charlie offers in return. _Ever since I was in school. I don’t sleep much._

He flexes out his arm. The vulnerability is right there, practically begging him to grab it and run with it as far as he can. He opens and closes his hand, lets the blood flow back in. It’s only a job, he reminds himself, it’s only this one time. He’s under no obligation.

One pet, two questions. _Is it interesting? Is it finished?_

 _I was wondering_ and he draws the syllables out just enough to make his education obvious, and for a redbrick dropout such as Charlie, he reckons that will suffice, _if you’d be interested meeting up for a chat._

He imagines Charlie sitting bolt upright now, all traces of sleep forgotten.

 _Sure_ he says, too quick. Eager as a puppy. _Sure, that would be amazing._

_Wonderful, let’s say tomorrow. Have you got a pen?_

_What time?_ A heartbeat’s pause before he offers. _Only, I’ve got a thing._

 _When is your_ thing.

_Lunchtime?_

_Ah._ The word packs a wallop of disappointment.

Now he waits. It matters not one speck to him. He’s got the whole day free.

 _I can shift it_ he suggests. _It’s just a mate._

His blood is singing inside his skull. Too easy, that capitulation. Too fucking easy. It’s time to ring off.

 _I’ll text you the details_ he says and then abruptly. _Goodbye._

He hangs up the kitchen phone, checks the nursery, fixes a coffee, and plays records until he’s calmed down enough to sleep which, as it turns out, is hours away.

The next day, a Monday no less, a corner table opens up just as he’s scouting for a place. It’s packed with office workers lingering over coffee, avoiding the return to their desks for as long as possible. He waves Charlie over when he arrives, looking foolish with sunglasses on indoors.

 _Tuna mayonnaise or cheese and tomato?_ he asks. _They do a very good carrot juice, but there’s orange if you’d rather have that._

 _You didn’t have to_ Charlie says as he sits down. He looks at the drinks with suspicion.

He smiles, shows his teeth. _It’s my pleasure. I called the meeting, after all._

_That means you buy me lunch?_

_Yes_ he says, _and it gets me out of the office._ It gets him more than that. A chance to observe in public. To set up a series of small, deliberate choices and to see where they lead. To be friendly, almost alarmingly so. And to get a good cappuccino, after he’s finished.

Charlie is nodding, digesting this new knowledge. He’s quite _fresh_ , for all he looks weary. _Cheese, I suppose. And the orange juice._

He slides the packet over. Charlie opens it straightaway, notices he isn’t doing the same, frowns a touch. He brushes his fingers together above the exposed sandwich, like wiping off nonexistent crumbs. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he takes a sip of his drink, then clasps them in front of him, too close to his body to look really natural. None of his gestures seem to be organic.

 _Go on_ he says, and unwraps his own sandwich as encouragement. He makes a show of taking a bite. Charlie hesitates, but when he sees it’s all right, follows suit. The tentative first bite becomes a more enthusiastic second, then an eager third. He drinks his juice and starts in on the second half. Gone is the pretense of politeness. Charlie, it would seem, is hungry.

He swallows, sips his carrot juice, which was all he’d wanted, really, when he’d ordered.

_There’s going to be another Brass Eye. I’ve got the go-ahead, and a team more or less assembled._

Charlie’s mouth stops moving. It falls open in surprise when he’s told what the subject matter will be.

 _Jesus._ He looks aghast, then remembers to swallow his food. _How’re you planning to sort that? Can you even?_

He shrugs. Of course he can. But it has to get made first. He tells Charlie this, with a few more flourishes, a bit less confidence.

 _I’d love to get your take on a few things,_ he says, in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. Bring him in for a trial run. He’ll know what that means. _Maybe have you along for a script meeting, bash out some good visual gags for us? I’ve enjoyed the cartoons you do._

Charlie looks like he’s been woken up on Christmas morning only to be told that his favourite grandparent has been admitted to hospital.

 _I don’t see why not_ he says. _But really? You’re sure you want me?_

 _Finish your sandwich_ he says, pushing back from the table. _I’ll get us cappuccino._

 

* * * * *

 

The work begins in earnest, and Charlie is there for bits of it. They meet in cafes, restaurants, parks, and he sends envelopes through the post and gets them back in return. Charlie is what he’d expected him to be: juvenile, clever, self-conscious, a petulant little prick.

The special is what he’d expected, too. Commissioner furore, upheaval in the tabloids. He contrives to miss the outcry by going on holiday. He returns to a brimming inbox and an answerphone with no room left for inbound messages. He changes the outgoing message and the barrage is, mercifully, cut off at the knees.

He declines interviews, rips up his hate mail. Jo has a little cry about it, but he assures her that their family is safe.

Now that they’re finished, he doesn’t have a legitimate reason to text Charlie in the middle of the night anymore. But they’d started a conversation, hadn’t they? It still exhilarated. Plus, it was nice to have someone else around who kept off hours. He must have kept his phone in bed to answer so immediately.

Idle curiosity gets the better of him in the predawn.

_Are you asleep?_

The reply is almost instantaneous.

_no, not anymore. what’s up?_

_Can you come round Soho tomorrow? My office._

_what about_

He smirks as he stabs at the letters, imagining Charlie’s put-upon face.

_Thought we could chat about your cunt._

_about nathan you mean_

Clever boy.

_That’s the one. Poland Street. Three o’clock._

_see you tomorrow_

He can’t fully quash the need to correct.

_Later today._

_later today then_

He goes for a cappuccino at one. By two-thirty he is sat at his desk fiddling with the webcam to make certain the field of view is correct. He stands up, sits down again on the sofa right in the centre. That works. But what if he chooses to sit too far to one side? He’ll be stuck with a fuzzy bit of leg or arm, certainly less useful than the wide view. With scant minutes remaining he opts for the full capture, figuring he can always zoom in later.

At 3:04 by his reckoning, there is a buzz at the entryway and, a few minutes after that, a knock on the door. Charlie is stood there in his usual ensemble of jeans, trainers, and t-shirt, his eyes a little red-rimmed, reeking of cigarette smoke. He backs away to let him pass inside, wrinkles his nose at the smell. He only smokes outside, never in the office, which he keeps sealed up tight as a crypt.

 _Have a seat_ he indicates the sofa with a sweep of his hand. Charlie looks around and then backs himself into the far corner.

Where should he sit? The sofa is more companionable, not to mention allowing him to observe up close. But. But he’ll be in the frame, and he’d rather not. He reaches for the rolling chair and positions himself at a diagonal from Charlie, moving with a trained presenter’s confidence. He won’t be blocking the camera at all.

 _I reckon once you’ve done that you can do anything you like_ Charlie says in disbelief. _How’d you manage?_

 _Sheer bloody-mindedness?_ he replies. And blood, like you wouldn’t believe. He’ll be drained for months from the ordeal.

 

* * * * *

 

The box has been strangely quiet for weeks.

Whatever is in there might simply have expired, quietly, if there was anything in there in the first place. 

He calls Charlie. Leaves a message.

_All right. Let’s write it now._

 

* * * * *

 

Distantly, he’s aware that the office is stifling hot. Outside is equally muggy and unpleasant, though the mornings are cool enough when he cycles in.

They’re working through ideas: Charlie talking, him typing. Charlie might be more comfortable wearing less. He wipes his own upper lip and his hand comes away damp.

His compliance pleases — almost too easy, really, to bring about — but it is the discomfort, plain on his face, that he relishes, and which only patience permits him to wait to see revealed. They have time, there will be time.

 _Will you?_ Charlie asks, his face hopeful. Pathetically hopeful. It begs for more of the same.

 _I’m all right, thank you_ he says, and goes right back to typing.

 

* * * * *

 

 _Can I just — can I just_ and he holds his breath while he waits to see how Charlie will react.

 _Stay_ he says. _Stay here._

His pulse hammers behind his eye. An insistent wasp, waiting to burst forth from a papery nest. He holds it back, tightens his jaw.

He waits. Dares to hope.

Charlie’s shoulders stiffen, and a terrible winged moment descends where it could have all been a mistake, but that can’t be it, it _can’t_. It’s simply not possible. Charlie answered the phone when he called at four in the morning. If he sent a text at six, Charlie would reply right away. If it was lunch time, dinner time, tea time, pub time, he jumped at the chance, like a dog being offered a sausage.

Then again, many before him have done that. He chooses correctly, usually. Only once before has he chosen a man who turned out not to want to answer when he called.

His eyelid twitches.

The stiffness beneath his hand sags, a near-imperceptible fraction, and he swears the thin cotton t-shirt feels softer, somehow.

He speaks again, in a tone that is meant to evoke — if not God, say (a blasphemous thought, that, a delightful blasphemy) then his representative on Earth. _Stay_ he tells Charlie. _Stay where you are._

The cotton is soft and worn underneath his hand. He moves his thumb up, against the blood vein in Charlie’s neck, and Charlie hisses, an undignified, beautiful, unguarded sound.

The glee fizzes in him like candy, like pop. _There_ he thinks, with schoolboy glee, _there, there, there._

 _I can’t have you smoking in my office Charlie_ he says, and that little hiss, again, as his thumb traverses downwards this time.

Charlie’s mouth opens like he’s about to speak and spoil the moment. He hadn’t planned on it but it is the most natural thing in the world to step back, left hand resting assured on Charlie’s shoulder, a tether tying him to earth, and to smack him with the other.

His eyes flutter closed on the impact. The _noise_ , though. Shit. It is more than he’d hoped to imagine. Not for the last time, he prays that the camera doesn’t shut off with no warning, that his storage space hasn’t been maxed out.

He glances at the webcam where it sits on his desk, silently at Charlie — affected, by the look of him — and turns away before he can inflict any real damage. His palm itches to do it again — and again, and after that, yet again — but once is enough to whet the appetites. More than that would simply be self-indulgent.

 

* * * * *

 

_You need to relax, Charlie._

Charlie looks as though he’d rather eat glass.

 _Relax_ isn’t really right. _Relax_ is for holidays, school breaks, dinner parties with old friends and babysitters at the ready. _Relax_ is Pimm’s in the garden with the cricket audible through the open kitchen window. _Relax_ is falling asleep with a fat book under a wide plane tree in the dog days of summer.

What Charlie needs to do is not _relax_ but _switch off._

The obedience gives him a tiny rush, though he won’t share that tidbit. He keeps his focus on the computer screen, a priest with his back to the congregation, and listens for the faint sounds of Charlie’s breath, quick and shallow, to tell him all he needs to know.

They work well, that afternoon, and ideas flow onto the page until eight that evening.

When he gets home he’s dehydrated, tetchy from the long day. There’s a late supper and Jo reads in the bath while he cleans the kitchen. If she’s not completely knackered they might go back to the bedroom, and he might fall asleep, too, lulled into stupefaction as he watches her back lift, and fall, lift, and fall, with each measured breath.

But come summertime he likes to go back to Soho at night. The heat bring out the worst in people, and he relishes it. People clustered outside of pubs, smoking, shouting. The comparatively maudlin atmosphere outside each off-license, where the punters are just trying their best. Drugs dealers hustling for trade amongst the already wrecked. Tourists lost down alleyways and mews, peering into the windows of the sex shops as their wallets get lifted. Hen nights gone awry, penis balloons hanging forlornly in the air as overly made-up women scratch at one another’s faces, pull one another’s hair.

 

* * * * *

 

He calls it a game to appeal to Charlie’s sense of whimsy. There’s no reward in it, although he's having a decent enough time as they play.

The ideas? Mostly shit, but at least there’s plenty to choose from. It can always be refined, punched up. Right now what matters is to get it _out_ — out from Charlie’s head, out onto the page — and worry about the rest later.

He's gathering his things, patting down his pockets, when Charlie blurts out something entirely unexpected.

Christ. Good thing he’s still sitting down.

 _You haven’t yet?_ he hears himself ask. _At home?_

Charlie shakes his head. No. His heart sings. More than he could have hoped. And compliant, too, all by himself.

 _You can when the series is finished._ That’ll be a promise for them both.

 

* * * * *

 

On Monday he twirls a ballpoint pen in his fingers while he reads the printouts over, scratching down Charlie’s suggestions and adding commentary of his own. Tuesday morning sees Charlie and him trade places. He writes longhand with the pen on a legal pad, his legs stretched out on the sofa, and Charlie does the revisions on the computer.

Lunchtime comes and he rolls up off the sofa. He sets the legal pad by Charlie’s elbow, places a hand on his shoulder. Charlie looks up, surprised, at the gentle touch. He needn’t be. He’s only giving him what he’s after. He’s not a monster.

_I have some things to take care of. Have a lie-down if you like. I’ll be back after a while._

Charlie looks so bloody hopeful that he aches to smack some sense into him. What kind of blithering idiot would let himself get treated like this? His mind supplies the answer readily: a man who liked it, of course. The same way you know what you’re like, don’t you?

He walks further afield than usual that day and ends up down by the arcade. It’s innocuous enough in daylight, but he’s seen some real dust-ups at the weekend. Sometimes he amuses himself by looking for the dried-up blood ground into the pavement.

Inside, through the shop, and down the stairs he takes his time examining the merchandise. It’s all incredibly tawdry, not to mention a bit silly. Why bother with handcuffs and nipple clamps when you could hurt someone just as well — hurt them _better_ — with nothing more than hands and words? He briefly fingers a leather blindfold before moving on to the next section. Charlie is too much in his head for that to really appeal.

They eat the sandwiches he brings back from the shop. Charlie, as usual, takes whatever is on offer without complaint. That afternoon he swaps out his ballpoint pen for a small folding knife, which he fiddles with as he reads through the newly-revised printouts, nodding his approval at the changes.

On the Wednesday, he takes the knife out again and lays it next to his papers and pens, on his desk.

Thursday morning Charlie is antsy, fidgeting. Luckily he has just the thing with which to make him keep still.

When lunchtime comes, he folds the knife back up and stows it in his pocket.

 _I could go, if you like_ Charlie offers, practically gagging to be made useful.

 _I don’t trust you to get me what I want_ he says,  _but thanks all the same._

When he comes back he empties out the carrier bag and sets his Pellegrino off to the side. He sits down and beckons Charlie over.

 _Down there_ he says, and indicates the space by his Converse.

Charlie’s face radiates discomfort as he goes onto his knees.

He flicks open the knife and pierces the cellophane. The sandwich is placed directly onto the desk. He cuts away the corners until all that remains is a large square, and this he divides into nine smaller ones. He does the same with the other half, pushing the extraneous bits away.

Charlie takes every piece from his fingers like it’s fucking communion, and looks so grateful that even he feels, for a moment, like he’s gone too far.

He fiddles with background material, posters and fliers and magazines, and Charlie sits obediently at his feet the whole afternoon.

 

* * * * *

 

He needs quiet after that, he finds. It’s too much for him to talk, to charm.

Charlie does as he’s told, and after an hour and a bit, he finds himself ready — if not to talk, then to listen, at least.

 _Cocaine!_ he nearly shouts. _That’ll be the gag. Everyone can be hopped up on cocaine. Nathan, the model. Pingu if you like, I don’t know. Claire can show up and do Nathan’s head in. Oh, and the blowjob. We can put it in there too. She’s on coke, right, and keeps going to the toilet, only he wants a bit so his cock’ll stay hard…._

 _Keep going_ he says, and checks that his top desk drawer is still ajar, that he hasn’t accidentally closed it with his hip in his haste to put his hands on Charlie, that the green light is still on.

 

* * * * *

 

 _It looks very big_ Charlie says, fear lit up behind his eyes.

 _I’m sure you can take it_ he replies, the fear only stoking his desire to make it happen.

 _Well what if I don’t want to_ he asks.

Idiot. Of course he _wants_. He’s made up of nothing more than knob jokes and desperate fucking want, held together by sarcasm and cigarettes.

 _That's all right_ he reassures. _We won’t bother with today then._

But Charlie, bless him, has that determined set to his jaw that says otherwise. He wants to try, hell, he’ll try anything if it gets him a bit of attention.

He has Charlie kneel on the sofa, with his hands braced against the back. This close up he can see the lines around Charlie’s eyes, nearly feel the quickened tempo of his breathing. It makes his own speed up with excitement.

 _Take your trousers down_ he says and arranges Charlie’s legs to give himself room to work, knelt there by his side.

It's all terribly intimate. Distantly he’s aware that his own arousal echoes Charlie’s own, but he focuses only on the task before him. He leans Charlie forward with one big hand splayed over his backside, and spreads him open with his fingers. The other one wriggles the implement from side to side, seeking out resistance.

Charlie clenches up tight, nearly knocks the damn thing out of his hand.

 _Hush, Charlie_ he smooths his free hand down Charlie’s back. _You’re fine, I promise._

He cradles the back of Charlie’s head and scratches over his hair. Charlie gives a little moan that goes straight to his prick, and he soothes him like a wild animal until he can breach him a little more. Charlie grunts when it goes in, all at once, this time. His abdomen has tightened up to steady himself as he adjusts to what is being done to him, to what is happening.

Blood rushes to his head, a dizzying, powerful rush. He breathes in through flared nostrils. _Patience_  he reminds himself, _patience._ It will hurt well enough to please Charlie no matter how he does it.

They carry on working. At intervals Charlie drags himself up off the sofa to use the toilet, and this he watches, greedily, knowing the camera can’t follow him in there. He leaves the door open, so he can hear what he cannot quite make out. Another good idea for a future bad day.

For a brief minute he entertains the idea of sending Charlie out for their lunch, but a glance over at his tented boxers says that would be too cruel. For the daytime, at least.

After lunch he tells Charlie to lie down with his head against the arm of the sofa, legs spread, arse in the air. His hands are balled up, clenching, unclenching. He removes the plug partway and douses the exposed section with more lubricant. He flicks a little upwards with his index finger, cold against Charlie’s tender testicles.

He checks the angle. His feet might be cut off, but that is no great sacrifice. And if he has to see his own face, then let it be his better side.  
Charlie is biting at his lower lip as he tries to keep quiet. Odd, that he’s provided that injunction himself; it wasn’t a command he’d given.

He rubs Charlie’s scalp with his left hand. Charlie keens, presses back again his palm. With his right thumb he traces the stretched rim of Charlie’s hole. Charlie rolls his forehead against the arm of the sofa, face down, mouth agape.

Gently, ever so gently, he positions his hand against Charlie’s skull in order to shift his face into frame. Charlie goes with it, arsehole tight around his fingers, mouth going slack as he slides further down onto the sofa. He rests his left cheek against the worn mossy-coloured velvet. His eyes are screwed shut, his cheeks bloom crimson. He peers closely at Charlie’s face to make certain there is dampness, though whether it comes from sweat or tears, he cares not.

 _Charlie_ he says in the quietest near-whisper, quiet enough that it will sound like the instructions are coming from inside his own head, _Charlie can you stay put for me, right here? Stay just like this._

Charlie gulps, swallows, and then his mouth falls open again. His hand is blocking his face, and he is required to lift it — carefully, gingerly, in order not to break the spell — and move it from the sofa until it dangles near the floor. His fingers curl around the sofa leg, seeking purchase. In the replay he will notice how his pinky gets stiff first, followed by the ring finger, and then the rest, but now he focuses on the bowed arch of his shoulders, the soft whimpers he can’t help but make.

Charlie is brilliant, stays exactly where he’s put. He leans forward with his whole weight until his thumb slides in alongside the plug. Charlie lets out a positively indecent moan. He uses his thumb to angle the toy upwards and Charlie shudders beneath him.

 _You’re doing brilliantly Charlie_ he says, and presses his clothed thighs against Charlie’s worn, sweat-damp boxers. He looks to the right, at the camera’s unblinking, unsentimental eye.

Charlie spreads his legs wider, inviting more. Would that he could give it to him. But it’s not time for that yet. Instead he gives the plug a little shove, a fraction harder than it needs to be, and is delighted to see, when he pulls Charlie upright onto the sofa seat, that a large wet patch has spread across the front of his underwear.

They work for a few more hours. Charlie shuffles back and forth to the loo, his discomfort obvious and growing with every passing minute. By the time eight o’clock comes round he finds himself wanting to stay. To pull Charlie onto his lap and work him over for real. To finish inside him, then stop him back up, with a recording that would catch the broad strokes and a tape to get the nuance, the noise.

But no matter how fantastically Charlie has complied, the series won’t finish itself. He’s keen now, he will be in a few weeks' time as well. Reluctantly, then, he returns to his swivel chair. He thinks of pleasant, dull things.

 _You did so well today_ he says, _I’m proud of you._

When he comes in on Friday to watch over that day’s recordings, he finds himself amused by Charlie’s behaviour after he’s gone. His swollen testicles had slipped out through the slit in his boxers and Charlie had fumbled to tuck them away before remembering that he could simply take off his pants, and then, with some wincing, pull out the plug, which he finds cleaned and tucked away in the carrier bag the next morning.

 

* * * * *

 

They’d been doing so well - _he’d_ been doing so well that it comes as a bit of shock to remember that Charlie hasn't really changed all that much. The smoking is ghastly. He’d said none in the office, but all that does is drive him down to the pavement. It takes him five minutes to walk back up, winded, stinking, to the top floor.

Lunchtime comes and goes and the entire day has been a wash. His jaw hurts from grinding his back teeth in frustration. 

_Strip off._

Charlie looks miserable, as if he's been caught out doing something he shouldn't. His face tells one tale and his body the other. He likes it, likes being miserable, _wants_ to be caught out. He's been deliberate and provocative, and it’s come to this. There’s no other way around it. It’s entirely his own doing.

His movements are clumsy as he lowers himself to the floor. He watches with scrutiny, distaste. The tile looks uncomfortable.

 _I value your contributions, Charlie_ he says, and leaves him there on the floor.

After a couple of moments he hears the water start up.

 

* * * * *

 

He saves the final — for now — edit, checks the printer’s plugged in, and leaves it to run while he goes to the toilet.

Charlie stays put in his spot on the sofa. He doesn’t need to be told any longer to sit still.

He fits the earbuds in once the door is shut and starts the SanDisc. He relieves himself to layered noises — Charlie chewing, the quiet lumpy sounds of his throat, swallowing, interspersed with his thoughtful sounds, his agreeing sounds — all platonic pleasures. These build to a crescendo and then fade into the more earthly ones: Charlie swearing, inaudible under his breath, and then more loudly. Different pains on different days, but both times Charlie’s face had been red and blotchy and he’d tried to hide it in his shirt collar. He never could stand a shirker.

He’s edited himself out of the final mix, but he’s on there, asking — no, _demanding_ — for Charlie to look at him straight on. He marginally regrets now that he didn’t take it further. If only he’d thought to ask how it felt, and if it hurt, and, Christ, if Charlie had liked it when it did.

He’s fairly fucking certain he knows how he’d have answered then, and what he might say here and now, these many weeks on. Charlie is only a man, in the end. And men are rather simple. They want only to seem as opaque as smoked City glass, don’t they?

_Are you ever going to let me come_  
_Let me_  
_Let me_

That makes his cock swell up something fierce. He’d not mentioned it once. Oh, that’d all been Charlie. He presses the earbuds in more tightly, backs up a few seconds to hear the words from the beginning.

_I need a cigarette. Can I smoke? Please, it’ll only take a moment. You won’t even know I’m gone._

_I need_  
_I need_  
_I need_

_Don’t make me, Chris. I’ll come up with something. There’s got to be more mileage we can get from the haircut, or the stylist, maybe…?_

_Don’t make me_  
_Don’t make me_

_Don’t_

_Don’t_

Should have pushed him more there too. It had done Charlie’s head in properly, and it had affected his body, too, only a little less than having a fake cock up his arse. But when he’s good and ready, any moment now, he’ll have Charlie take the real thing, and when that’s finished he can sync the footage, make it split screen, compare it to his heart’s content, and what a fucking sight _that_ will be.

_I’m so sorry._

_I’m going to come._

_Touch me again. Hit me. Please._  
_Hit me._  
_Hit me._  
_Hit me._

If only he’d been more daring, asked better questions. Demanded answers rather than output. They could have done more, couldn’t they, even though they’d only had a couple of months? He rests his head against the cool wall tiles, berates himself for the path not taken.

But he has the camera running now, and that will have to count for something. That, and the tape recorder. His voice creaks with arousal when he finally speaks through a crack in the door.

_Okay, Charlie. You can put it on now._

He leaves the player up on a high shelf, then turns out the wet room lights. Slowly he makes his way to the front of the sofa. It is the first, and the last time he will see this, have this, do this with Charlie. It won’t do to rush through it.

Charlie has managed to make himself small, sunk down into the sofa, rubbing his hands against the backs of his knees, his shins.

He folds to his knees which draws up a surprised gasp in Charlie. He takes his sweet time, as well, divesting Charlie of his trainers, his socks, his jeans, his underwear, and even balls up the socks and folds the jeans, if only to be a prick himself. Well, he can’t fucking help it, now can he?

Charlie tastes like sweat and desperation, summer and adrenaline. He is tense until he is pliant, pliant until he is soft enough to tongue fuck, and then he is too close to take much more. He detaches, reluctantly.

 _Take your t-shirt off_ he tells Charlie. _It will look better._

 _You take it off_ Charlie smiles, like this has all been a fucking game to him.

He smacks him on the backside for the cheek, then leans in and yanks it off himself. He doesn’t bother this time with folding it.

He lumbers over to the desk, opening the bottom drawer and leaving the top one cracked open too. When he returns to the sofa, Charlie is exactly in the position where he left him. He looks a bit cross-eyed, certainly stupid. He looks in desperate need of a fuck.

The ring can only keep him in check so much, he finds. Charlie hadn’t — hadn’t this whole fucking time — because he’s decided, all by himself, that he wasn’t meant to, hadn’t been permitted to, and that wasn’t him at all, that was all fucking _Charlie_ , sick, desperate, lost little Charlie.

 _Pathetic_ he says, and watches Charlie’s eyes roll back into his head. _Fucking pathetic._

 _What do you need, Charlie?_ He knows the answer.

_I need you to fuck me, Chris._

_Say it again_ he demands.

Charlie says it, mouths it silently, even as it’s already happening, and when he grips Charlie by the calves and finds himself wanting to hurt him this way, too, from inside, and Charlie just succumbs. He melts into it, like a sigh taking over his whole body. _Relax_ he says, and Charlie says _okay okay okay_ , a little puddle of spit collecting in the corner of his mouth.

It feels good — Jesus, better than good, balls-deep fucking _amazing_ — but watching his own backside in playback will grow dull rather quickly. He allows himself a few more thrusts and then stands up to his full height. Charlie’s legs dangle uselessly in the air. With one hand he reaches out after him, plaintively, trying to bring him back, if only for a second.

He runs a hand through his sweaty curls, shakes his head. _Stand up_. Charlie wobbles up like a newborn colt, his knees knocking against one another. Breathing hard, eyes almost black even in the overhead light, he watches greedily as he positions himself on the sofa.

Charlie licks his lips.

He barely inclines his head before Charlie is upon him, straddling him with his damp legs.

 _Move however you like._ He brushes his hands up along Charlie’s bare arms, enjoying his shiver, the way his cock twitches gratefully at the touch. _Only, don't look directly at the camera. It'll ruin it._

 _Okay_ Charlie says with a tremor in his voice, valiantly trying to scale his erection. He pulls his feet in a bit to tip his pelvis up, and Charlie gratefully finds his angle.

He lets himself hear the sounds Charlie makes now, and all the little noises he'd made since the first time they’d met. He recalls his face red from denial, from humiliation, hell, even from chundering laughter. He lets himself look his fill, and feel Charlie tight around his cock, and relishes the way he debases himself — even knowing he’s on camera, knowing how wretched he must look — too desperate, too far gone to care.

 _Pathetic_ he says, and Charlie’s eyes squint closed against the rush of his own release.

 

* * * * *

 

 _No, Charlie_ he writes back as soon as he’s read the email through.

_The present day has rendered the form impotent, if you catch my meaning. Other projects are ongoing, however. AND. I could always use another set of eyes. If you want to write with me again. Do you want to?_

_Best,_  
_Chris_

When twenty minutes pass without a response, he knows the non-answer is a refusal. He refuses to believe that he feels a sentimental pang at the realization.

 

* * * * *

 

Jo works for Charlie now, and religiously watches any crap if it means he’s been nominated for something. Why she cares when there’s nothing in it for her benefit, he cannot quite grasp. Nothing besides a percentage ... a sales boost for the back catalogue, licensing residuals from the same ... gushing Twitter accolades ... free publicity for the agency, for her brand ... swank party invitations ... all that, and whatever else American dollars could provide.

When they’ve won twice over, Jo has had enough. She shuts down the stream and kisses him goodnight. She tastes like red wine, salty popcorn, dark chocolate. _Turn the lights out when you come up_ she says. _I’ll ring Charlie tomorrow. He’ll be in and out of interviews all night tonight, I should think._

 _And Annabel_ he reminds her.

 _Her too_ she says, though Annabel has nothing to do with the school fees, nor the car payments, nor their upcoming holiday in Greece. She has everything to do with Charlie’s success, though.

It’s late in London, even for him, but he makes an Arabic coffee on the stovetop and takes it through to his office. He feels wilted, like an unwatered plant. He sits on the floor amidst his detritus. Research papers, notebooks, records, piles of fliers that he’d mocked up himself for the background. The set dressers had wanted to murder him at the time. He wouldn’t have blamed them.

But it’s all right. He’s watched the DVD and can see where it has legs, and where it lacks. Places where the characterization could be stronger, and certainly spots where the jokes have overshadowed the story. He should have paid better attention to the times when they were simply agreeing with one another, even if it looked like debate on the surface. Should've course corrected Charlie’s shortcomings. Yet maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Could be that those failings are what’s made his success. A nasty, unwelcome thought.

His laptop is on the floor by his bare feet. It contains every recording in its entirety, all backed up in a secure cloud server that he’d come by on the recommendation of a former MI5 agent. Probably trustworthy. 

On these occasions he permits himself a rare cigarette, opening the window to air out the smell. He sits with legs crossed and the laptop on a cushion, speeding through whole hours in seconds, entire days in minutes. He has come to appreciate the small moments that he didn’t recognize as being significant at the time. Days when Charlie comes into his own, when he is sharp and firing on all cylinders. A few lone ideas have made it all the way into this shiny new American show, and seeing them in their infancy makes him feel warm and tingly, in a way he usually does in regards to his boys, to actors whose improvised lines shame his written ones, even the dog once in a while.

He peers into the coffee grounds, which tell him only that he used too much sugar for so late at night.

He doesn’t need coffee to tell him what he already knows, which was that at the time, they’d thought they were making a television programme. Working jointly on a project. Charlie had been doing that, to the best of his untrained ability, but him? Well, he had been working on Charlie.

Rumour has it that in an edit suite somewhere, Terrence Malick is still trying to cut the right version of _The Thin Red Line_ , ten, eleven, twelve years on.

He backs up the footage to the last day. He turns off the sound and watches the grainy video: Charlie's hopeful face, his fumbling hands, his naked body, totally spent, on his office sofa. 

_Can you revisit the past? Can you leave the thing well enough alone? Can you, years and decades on, open the box, and hope?_

He hits the space bar to pause the video and pulls out his phone.

Only one way, really, to find out. 


End file.
